Fairs

Estampa

9-12 October | Madrid

Stand A-01 | This is Not a Test - Nacho Martín Silva

Probably because of the great amount of visual information that is being kept regarding everything related to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the outermost western regions of this terrible disaster they have become a point of reference for contemporary aesthetics. The mushroom cloud generated by the devastating bomb is one of the most ominously beautiful images ever created by man. It is also one of the symbols of the capacity for the destruction of mankind as a species. The terror of a nuclear attack has given rise to invisible wars, as the so called Cold War, to invasions justified by the existence of, also invisible, weapons of mass destruction (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and of course to numerous fiction or even science fiction films that revolve around the consequences of a nuclear threat or attack. As in most of my works, there is a clear reference to the constructing process of the work itself. By using images from the searches on the internet regarding the topic of interest: global atrocity / nuclear attack / atomic bomb/ simulation, I create new images in which the hierarchies between the different levels of representation are being homogenised, combining drawing, reprography and photocopy and photographs of paintings. The origin of the image is mixed up and it might come from a fictitious or a real source. Sometimes, the real image is pure representation, like the images extracted from what is known as the SurvivalTown, real scale reproductions of entire villages that were built in the State of Nevada in order to test the impact a nuclear attack would have on the population. The title of the project comes from the homonymous film from 1962. The film, considered to be what is commonly described as a b-movie – low budget and science fiction oriented films – analyses the behaviour of a group of people facing a nuclear threat. The project This is Not a Test is formalised by means of a highly manual nature, almost pictorial, both in its conception and its execution. A visual language that is almost precarious and that questions the supposed redemptive capacity of art for humankind.